Bad Science: Are science skills being displaced by a focus on reading and math?
By:
Kristi Garrett
It’s graduation day at Harvard University, and the nation’s top students are celebrating their accomplishment with friends and family. A video crew takes them aside and asks a simple question: What causes the phases of the moon?
To the astonishment of the science educators conducting the interviews for the film, 21 of 23 Harvard graduates, faculty and alumni had misconceptions about basic astronomy. The phases of the moon are caused by the earth’s shadow, and the shape of the earth’s orbit around the sun is clearly elliptical, many guessed. Actually, the earth only casts a shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, a relatively rare event, and earth’s orbit is basically circular. If the best-educated students in the country don’t understand these basic concepts, what does that say about science education in America?
If you didn’t truly understand what causes the phases of the moon, don’t feel bad. Many Americans (the author included) have misconceptions about scientific concepts that are very difficult to overturn. The cause, some theorize, stems from early misconceptions each of us form about the way the world works that later instruction fails to identify and clear up.
Scientific advances have improved our lives dramatically. New communications technologies have made it possible for us to keep in contact with virtually anyone, anywhere, any time. Research in the medical field has led to new health care options that have improved the quality and length of our lives. Similar advancements have been made in transportation, defense, agriculture, and other industries we count on every day.
So researchers aren’t the only ones who need to be science-literate in the 21st century. Without a firm grasp of basic scientific facts and concepts, many are easily misled by miracle cures, get-rich-quick schemes, and other scams.
“No citizen of America can participate intelligently in his or her community without being familiar with how science affects his daily life,” counsels the National Commission on Math and Science Teaching for the 21st Century in a 2000 report, “Before It’s Too Late.”
Indeed, an understanding of the scientific approach and the analytical thinking it requires brings order and balance to our lives, the report continues, and is the foundation for lifelong learning.
“Learning about science and nature isn’t just for future scientists,” says Dr. Kerry Clegg, a biological researcher, former university professor and current President of the California School Boards Association. “A good foundation in science and math is essential for students to develop the higher-order thinking skills that every student is going to need to be successful in a technologically advanced society.”
U.S. preeminence at risk
International comparisons of science test scores reveal that American students haven’t quite got a handle on many basic concepts. Fewer native-born students are pursuing careers in science and engineering, and the U.S. can no longer rely on foreign talent when native science and engineering graduates are unavailable. As the pool of qualified workers shrinks, the nation’s position as the world’s leading science innovator is at risk, with associated effects on the U.S. economy.
The National Science Foundation reported that most of the increase in the number of students pursuing graduate degrees in science and engineering in the year 2000 was from students with foreign visas; the number of U.S. students pursuing graduate degrees actually declined 3 percent that year. Overseas competition is opening up opportunities for highly trained workers in a number of countries, and national security concerns in the U.S. have tightened up the flow of foreign workers. As U.S. scientists retire and the pool of highly trained workers shrinks, the U.S. stands to lose its competitive edge in research and development. Furthermore, lower federal investment in research and graduate study in science and engineering has also had a chilling effect on the numbers of students interested in those fields.
“If action is not taken now to change these trends,” warned the National Science Board, “we could reach 2020 and find that the ability of U.S. research and education institutions to regenerate has been damaged and that their preeminence has been lost to other ends of the world.”
There is no time to waste in reinvigorating science education, said the NSB in “Science and Engineering Indicators 2004,” since the students entering the field today with graduate degrees began taking the necessary math courses up to 14 years ago, when they were in middle school.
Start early
The time to start creating budding scientists, most agree, is right from kindergarten. “If students don’t get a really good, exciting experience in science when they’re young, it just isn’t an area that interests them as they go through school,” says Christine Bertrand, executive director of the California Science Teachers Association. “Even though it’s required that students take two years of science in high school, oftentimes it’s kind of perfunctory because they really haven’t experienced a lot of quality, exciting science during their younger education years, starting in kindergarten.”
Berkeley professor Marcia Linn can corroborate Bertrand’s observation. “I think our biggest challenge at Berkeley is students coming to our undergraduate programs with very much less interest in science than I think is right. They have an image of science as boring and not relevant to their lives, and I’m so disappointed by that,” says Linn. She attributes students’ lack of enthusiasm, in part, to the sheer number of science standards, which ensure that teachers only have time to skim the surface of a wide variety of topics while developing none in depth.
Quite often, science instruction consists of a teacher standing in front of the class to conduct a brief review, lecture and illustrate a new concept, and then assign students to work, often alone, to complete a prescribed procedure. Memorization of definitions and labels is a major part of homework assignments.
Linn advocates what she calls inquiry instruction, giving students time to explore a topic by asking questions, gathering evidence, forming an argument and then defending it with their classmates. “That kind of activity, in my mind, not only teaches a science topic so you have more understanding of it, but it reveals to students what it means to understand something in science,” she says. The analytical thinking skills developed in the process help students be more critical of claims made by advertisers or information encountered on the Internet. “When you teach so that students integrate their ideas, they also do better on tests that ask them to recall factual information. But it’s difficult to believe that when you’re teaching,” she admits. “Do I teach for understanding but leave out a topic, or do I cover every topic and not try to emphasize understanding? That’s always a very hard trade-off.”
As a university professor at UCLA, Clegg says he routinely spent three hours lecturing students for every five or 10 hours they spent doing hands-on science in a laboratory. “If the university knows the proportion of direct instruction needs to be something on the order of 35 percent to 70 percent hands-on,” he says, “why would you think it would be different in high school or elementary school?”
A recent study by a Carnegie Mellon University researcher was reported as finding that direct instruction was just as effective as “discovery learning” in helping young students learn how to design experiments. However, Dr. David Klahr was studying instruction in the specific skill of learning to control variables in experiments, not making a blanket statement that lecturing, worksheets and chapter reviews are the most effective way to teach science.
Further, most science teachers would agree that it’s inappropriate to just “turn the kids loose” to explore a concept on their own. The teacher should know the goal of the lesson and design inquiry activities that can guide the students to discover the answer.
“Unfortunately,” says CSTA’s Bertrand, “some teachers may not know how to do a good lab and may just put out materials and expect students to figure out how things happen. That’s not an appropriate way to learn science. There needs to be a coupling of learning the content and seeing how things actually happen in real-life situations. It has to be guided.”
Teachers need support
But quality science education can’t happen — in any grade — without enthusiastic teachers who know how to teach the subject. California, as the rest of the nation, already suffers from a shortage of math and science teachers, and prospective teachers are not rushing to fill the vacancies. Almost one in four high school physical science teachers in California do not have a single-subject authorization to teach the subject, estimates the Center for Teaching and Learning. The low status and pay of science teachers compared with corporate jobs in science related fields, little support or options for professional development, frustration with student apathy, and lack of opportunities for advancement keep many trained in science away from the classroom.
“I had no formal preparation to teach science in my pre-service education,” noted Scott Hays, a member of the board of directors of CSTA. Hays and his wife, Helen, spent years teaching science in a small, rural K-8 school. Both have been involved in the California Science Project and the K-12 Alliance which provide mentoring and coaching to science teachers. “Teachers need to understand that it’s not a bad thing that they haven’t had adequate science preparation, but that they need to have it,” he says. Teachers can gain expertise through a number of short-term workshops, university programs, online classes, or by being paired with a mentor teacher.
Linn’s team at Berkeley has developed a number of resources for teachers, including professional development and computer-based lessons that teachers can use immediately.
“What we’ve found is that teachers are very eager to teach complex science concepts and to use technology to teach those subjects, but they lack the technical support to really take advantage of these innovative ways to improve learning,” Linn says. Many times, schools have the necessary computer equipment, she observes, but no one is available to configure it or keep it running, or the technician works very limited hours. “I understand the problems of budgets, but the opportunities are just being missed,” says Linn.
Beginning in 2007, the No Child Left Behind Act requires students to be tested in science, and its weight on the state Academic Performance Index will increase to about 15 percent for high schools and about 6 percent for elementary schools in 2006. However, the bulk of a school’s rating will still be based on language arts and math, and when administrators look at where to put scarce funds for professional development, equipment and supplemental materials, science will probably lose out.
Lack of consensus on standards
Science education in California schools is guided largely by the state’s academic standards. The California Science Content Standards were adopted in 1998 at the direction of the state Legislature. Interestingly, that very foundation has its cracks.
“I think it’s important for school board members to realize that the California science standards, the science framework and the instructional materials criteria are not really consensus documents,” says Lawrence D. Woolf, a research physicist for General Atomics in San Diego who has been active in education outreach at the state and national level for over 10 years and has been a curriculum reviewer for a number of National Science Foundation-funded science curricula. “There are many people in the science education community and industry and amongst teachers who disagree with a lot of them.”
How could that be?
California’s science standards differ from the national science standards in fundamental ways. While the National Science Education Standards include science content as well as discussing the role science plays in society, the California science standards are almost exclusively based on science content, Woolf says. “In addition, a major thrust of the national science standards was science as inquiry — science as something learned by doing — whereas that whole aspect really disappeared out of the California science standards and framework.”
Currently there is no provision for periodically reviewing and revising California’s academic standards in science or any other subject. Woolf organized a petition signed by hundreds in the science, education and business communities that called for revising the initial version of the California Science Standards so that they are correct, unambiguous, age-appropriate and consistent with the National Science Education Standards. Legislation that would have allowed for a periodic review of academic standards got to the governor’s desk last year, but Assembly Bill 2744 was vetoed.
The trouble with textbooks
New science textbooks based on the 1998 California standards are to be adopted in 2006. While science educators won a major battle with the state Board of Education over the amount of hands-on science the textbooks should support, the criteria for publishers specify that materials cannot be approved without addressing every standard at the grade level for that particular textbook. “That’s too bad,” says Woolf, “because it means that you’ve ruled out a significant number of high-quality instructional materials that are all based on the latest research from our best curriculum developers.”
Many materials don’t cover every topic at a grade level, and some publishers may do a better job with certain standards than others, so the ideal would be for the district’s curriculum specialists to select the best combination for their students, Woolf says. But since California’s criteria for adoption rule out materials that cover part of a year’s standards or if they take the topics out of grade-level order, they cannot be adopted for use in California classrooms. Districts could pursue a waiver, of course, but that’s a time-consuming process with no guarantees. One opportunity to create more flexibility was lost when the governor vetoed Senate Bill 1380 last year. The bill, sponsored by CSBA, would have allowed districts to purchase any standards-based materials, with the state Board’s approval.
American students’ poor showing on international comparisons of science knowledge, some educators and scientists suspect, stems from the quality of their textbooks. In a review of a physical science textbooks commonly used in U.S. middle schools, the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that not one was satisfactory. The textbooks generally covered too many topics and didn’t develop any of them very well. The suggested activities did not help students further their understanding of the underlying concepts.
John L. Hubisz of North Carolina State University in Raleigh conducted a similar review of middle school science textbooks and found that “the books have a very large number of errors, many irrelevant photographs, complicated illustrations, experiments that could not possibly work, and diagrams and drawings that represented impossible situations. It is no wonder that teachers and students alike find difficulty with physical science in the middle schools.”
Hubisz also noted that the books were generally “authored” by anonymous committees, not the person listed on the cover, who may have only scanned the text, if that. “Without a clear-cut author or pair of authors to ‘define’ the text or give it direction, these texts fail miserably,” Hubisz wrote in his 1998 report funded by the The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. “Committees produce mush and it is very difficult to find anyone with the authority to make corrections.”
Textbooks adopted for use in California classrooms are comparable to those Hubisz and the AAAS reviewed, says General Atomics’ Woolf. During the last adoption of science textbooks for California in 2000, publishers had just six months to prepare their submissions. “One of the main things the reviewers made sure of was that all the standards were covered. I don’t think there was really a serious effort — nor do I think it’s even possible in as short a period of time as they have and the number of materials they have to review — for them to check for factual and technical errors,” says Woolf. “Teachers should realize that there will be factual errors and mistakes in many textbooks.”
The state Board did acknowledge that there were errors in the materials adopted in 2000, but claimed that the legislation establishing California’s standards-based education system rushed the process. Publishers will have two years to submit materials for the 2006 adoption. Still, the textbooks Hubisz reviewed have been around for years and the errors persist.
The Hayses, who have consulted on a number of textbook adoptions nationwide, wish school districts had more options. “In an ideal world, the next adoption would say ‘we recommend these materials, but you are free to choose whatever you think is going to get your students where they need to be,’” says Scott Hays. “I don’t think the adoption process, the way we’re doing it now, is the best way to go. It’s important that a panel of people who know what the standards are, who know the science content and who know kids, look at the textbook materials and make their recommendations.”
Next steps
Based on test scores and the general public’s comfort level with science, improvements could be made in the way public schools develop their students’ understanding of basic scientific concepts. The California School Boards Association has joined forces with the California Science Teachers Association to provide recommendations for legislative and regulatory changes that could increase support for science programs in public schools. The task force will also encourage local districts to examine the quality of their own science curriculum.
“Ultimately, school districts have the responsibility to ensure that state and federal reforms do not detract from their goal to ensure a well-balanced curriculum for all students, including a rich science program,” reads the charge of the task force, which will be co-chaired by Clegg from CSBA and CSTA President Sharon Janulaw.
“I’m hoping we can come up with some strategies to reinvigorate interest in teachers for staff development and reinvigorate the Legislature’s interest in supporting science education in schools,” says Clegg.
CSTA’s Bertrand hopes to garner support from leaders in business and industries that have been adversely affected by the decrease in the number of science-literate students and employees. “We’d like to help policy-makers at the state level understand that it’s not just an academic conversation,” she says. “Their decisions have real consequences for the state’s economy and business climate, and it really needs to be addressed.”
In addition, school boards play an important role in the quality of science education in their districts. The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century spelled out what parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, higher education, legislators and business leaders can do to improve math and science teaching. Their report concludes: “Local school boards, because they are the decision-making body closest to the classroom, play a central role in setting a new course. It is they who have the ultimate responsibility to bring high quality teaching in mathematics and science to our schools.”
Kristi Garrett is managing editor of California Schools.
Science resources for teachers and policy-makers: